Utilizing an eclectic approach that perceives literature to be a symbolic expression of social criticism, this thesis treats nostalgia as a fundamental concept of contemporary Latin American literature as well as an inherent part of the human condition. Following in particular the conceptualizations of Julia Kristeva, Svetlana Boym and Martin Buber, in this study the term nostalgia is defined as the feeling experienced by an individual who is marginalized from happiness, who suffers an obsessive desire and search for something either lost or impossible to achieve, a feeling from which he or she may never recover. Focus is placed on the distinct forms, meanings and causes of this perception of nostalgia in three mid-twentieth century Latin American novels which announce the Boom of Latin American literature: El túnel (1948) by Argentine writer Ernesto Sábato, Pedro Páramo (1955) by Mexican writer Juan Rulfo and El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (1961) by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez.